Crowns But Men
by Pipidae
Summary: You didn't know that death was so still, didn't know that once a candle went out, there was no lighting it again. Cardverse.


_Note: This is, in fact, a Cardverse AU. Hopefully not your typical one; I think we've all seen enough And-Then-King-Alfred-Made-Tsundere-Kawaii-Arthur-The-Queen-And-There-Were-Unicorns stories to last a lifetime. So, here, have some screwed-up modern Cardverse, chock full of weird metaphors and figurative shit._

**xx**

**_Crowns But Men_**

_An oak table sits bare in the center of a sterilized white tile floor._

_It is cracked on one side, and the fracture is perpetually relinquishing the tiniest of splinters to the ground. You think that it is bleeding out, and someday the wooden lifeblood will surely drain entirely._

Drip, drip.

_A gnarled leg rests stoutly on a battered copy of an old history textbook. Every few days the support is adjusted, but the table still wobbles when your back is turned._

_Today, the textbook has been supplemented with a few thin pamphlets. Nevertheless, as your three fingers descend and rattle out a shaky rhythm on the warped surface of the tabletop, the legs rock back and forth. The drum roll fades, and you replace the fingers with a haphazardly tossed bundle of envelopes. The letters carry far more weight and the table almost sags and groans under the burden._

Drip, drip.

_Better to break the table than the hands who wrote them._

Drip.

_The table is severed in two with a resounding crack._

**xx**

The Queen is dancing.

Her arms are bare and white and open wide, flung out to the heavens in a mirthful bid for all to join her.

The people do not listen. They shiver quietly under their bed sheets and pray upside down and sideways that _please oh please _would her eye fall elsewhere.

She is made of sugar and spice. Where her naked feet grace the ground burst forth begonias and anemones, and rivers of wine flow from her outstretched fingertips. Her eyes are the sun, her hair the moon, and light shines from every orifice. Her table is laden with golden cups and bowls of almonds, of raisins, of berries; with satin sacks of sugarplums and dates; with small casks of the finest drink. The Court feasts, clad in silk and lace and leather and velvet, with rings on their fingers and jewels caught up in their hair. They laugh and sing, and all who ask may join. She is Bacchus, she is Euphrosyne, and her merriment is unbounded.

_So extinguish the candle._

_Look again. In darkness there is only truth._

The dance becomes a macabre ritual, and her feather-light fingers are the sharpest of knives, clawing at the sky and the earth and the gods. Each dizzying step brings her closer and closer, and she holds out a red stained hand, beseeching the world: _come nearer still_. Her eyes are fire, and the hounds of hell leap forth from their depths with gnashing jaws. The feral grin on her sunken face grows wide, stretching crudely over her razor teeth and splitting the pale, pale face into shards. She is swallowing the earth. The Court sinks and melts and twists: a slow fade to black. They are demons; they are hellions; and they are hers.

Round and round and round they go, fingers grasping, twitching, scraping; handfuls of flesh and fabric and muscle and bone. The breath of the damned is hot and heavy; she baptizes the Court in nightmarish spread of gore and tongues. Horned feet pound the ground in a senseless rhythm, and she whirls to keep to each and every beat. Faster, faster; hear the howls and growls and moans. Hear the seductive whispers, feel the blood and saliva over the cold ground. Life and death mean nothing here. Here, she is everything.

The Queen is dancing, and the people quake at her coming.

**xx**

Thin arms curl desperately around a lifeless waist. Weakly, they pull the body upwards, closer and tighter. For all his longing stares and punishing screams, it stays limp.

The Queen has come, they told him, and She has collected her tithe. Be gracious for his sacrifice.

A tiny golden head bends over to place a kiss and a tear on the cooling forehead. They mingle with dark blood, matted and sticky with growing age.

Two sets of small, chubby fingers are intertwined. One burns with hellfire and the other stays ice-cold. The crowd has left; it is best to leave the dead to themselves. Alfred stands at last, and silently walks away.

His footsteps echo the frenzy of the Queen.

**xx**

_It is an old log deep in the forest, covered in leaves and rain and a tiny line of determined ants. As each one reaches the end, a milky finger slowly presses down. The underside of the fingernail is coated in the tiny bodies of the dead._

**xx**

The glass windowpanes are melting away in the rain, and it is all he can do to keep from wiping them clean. The sky outside is greyer than ever.

Wiry arms wrap around him from behind, and he is all warmth and soft. _Good morning, _and the words are peppermint. He does not move. _White, white. Won't you stay, darling?_

The rain clears, if only for a moment, and the windows solidify again.

He turns around. "Haven't you seen the sky, Arthur?" he says.

A pitying smile is his reply. "Blue. Jaybirds and your eyes in the sunlight."

When he twists in his lover's embrace, he can't help but see that it's true.

**xx**

_You think back. Back through a rush of air and water and fire and you think back on everything._

_You didn't know who She was when She offered you a pale hand and you took it._

_You didn't know the sear of fire on your flesh, didn't know the burn of ice over your eyes and ears. You didn't know what it felt like to look into a green more intoxicating than absinthe and feel Her staring back, tongue flicking lightly over Her cracking lips as She read the undiscovered omnibus in your eyes. She stared at you and through you and even the most endogenous of emotions belonged to Her._

_You didn't know that death was so still, didn't know that once a candle went out, there was no lighting it again._

_You didn't know, you didn't know._

_And suddenly you don't know anything at all._

**xx**

"Arthur." It is a question, and the answering tone is patronizing.

"Yes, dearest."

"Arthur, have you seen Mattie?" Alfred is sitting on the dirty wood floor at Arthur's feet. His hair is woven with flowers and gold and Arthur's fingers.

"He's not here," Arthur says, and the discussion ends abruptly.

There is more that Alfred wants to say. He won't.

**xx**

He stands in under a green tinged sky, staring up, up and then falling backwards. The earth smells of blood and brimstone. It flows through him and doesn't let go. Something tickles behind his eyes, and in the time it takes to blink it away, the world has transformed into dark and quiet and red. He cannot hear anything.

Then the screaming starts.

The red doesn't go away.

A hand over his, and then they are walking. "Don't look now, poppet. Don't look."

Eyes shut tight, Alfred is lead away. Behind him, a gun still rattles against concrete where he dropped it.

**xx**

_It is only when you have grown older that you understand. The day you realize you no longer need to push the heavy gold crown back over your ears is the day you see Her for what She is. Even as She coos and curls her ice fingers around your chin, you step back._

_"I didn't raise you for this, Alfred," She says. It is a warning._

_"I didn't grow up for this," you reply. It is a moment of indecision, born from the weak plea of the dead and the victorious call of the empowered. It is a farewell and a reunion and a power play of the most dangerous sort._

_The Queen of Spades kneels to his King._

_The door is ahead of you, and suddenly you have grown wings._

_The bullet holes through them make you lose your balance more once. You are never sure which one of you put them there._

**xx**

A tiny article hidden underneath an ad announces the death of a local businessman. Alfred doesn't need to read it. Arthur doesn't want to.

* * *

Pff. I didn't want to write this. In fact, I ignored it for a month and read Homestuck instead. In doing so, I accidentally gained a fetish for second person. Oops.  
Also, I think over the course of it all, the plot changed at least seven times. Heck, I'm pretty sure this can have a few different plots right now, depending on how you read it.  
Anyways. Thanks for reading. It means a lot.

Oh, wait. Before I go. The title comes from Ebenezer Elliott's _The People's Anthem._ All credit where credit is due. Say hello to your 1800s badass.


End file.
